China Steel Corp. (CSC), Taiwan, has commissioned SMS Demag, Germany, as the leader of an international consortium, with the supply of a twin-strand continuous slab caster.

The new facility will be erected at the Kaohsiung location and will be used to produce 2.9 million tonnes/year of 230- and 250-mm gage steel slabs. It will attain a maximum casting speed of 2.2 meters/minute.

SMS Demag’s scope of supply comprises the basic and detail engineering as well as supply of all mechanical core components. SMS Demag will also supply the entire electrical and automation systems, including the technological control systems.

The caster will feature a spring-guided, hydraulically driven mold with resonance oscillation equipped with remote adjustment for the narrow faces. The remote adjustment allows the casting width to be adjusted within the range of 900 and 1680 mm while the caster is in operation. In addition to this technology from SMS Demag’s Intelligent Slab Casting^® package, the caster will also incorporate modules from the X-Pact^® electrical and automation solution.

The caster will also utilize mold level control (MLC) to avoid entrapping casting-powder inclusions, thus ensuring a high surface quality for the cast slabs. The mold’s temperature profile, which will be recorded by the mold monitoring system (MMS), will in turn be utilized to help control the secondary cooling by means of Dynamic Solidification Control (DSC). Dynamic soft reduction will help to minimize center segregations and porosities in order to obtain slabs with consistently good internal quality.

The capacity of the new slab caster will enable CSC to make the fullest use of its upstream steel meltshops and meet the rising demand for flat products.

SMS Demag will prepare the complete automation and put it into operation using the proven Plug & Work method. Plug & Work simulates the production sequence and allows the automation functions to be tested and optimized under realistic conditions prior to installation in the works. This will also result in a much shorter commissioning, planned for December 2008.

China Steel operates Taiwan’s largest integrated steel plant and produces around 10 million tonnes of steel per year there.

SMS GmbH is the holding for a group of companies internationally active in plant construction and mechanical engineering relating to the processing of steel, non-ferrous metals and plastics. The group is divided into the Business Areas SMS Demag and SMS Meer under SMS metallurgy and into the Business Area SMS Plastics Technology. In the year 2005 some 9,250 employees worldwide generated a turnover of about EUR 2.33 billion.